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Sunday, April 11, 2010

Holocaust Remembrance Day, Very Little Has Changed

On the morning of April 12th, 1945 General Eisenhower met Generals Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp. Afterward Eisenhower also ordered every American soldier in the area who was not on the front lines to visit Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. He wanted them to see for themselves what they were fighting against. Sixty-five years later we are still fighting against this horror. On this Yom HaShoah their words are much more moving then anything I could say :

During the camp inspections with his top commanders Eisenhower said that the atrocities were “beyond the American mind to comprehend.” He ordered that every citizen of the town of Gotha personally tour the camp and, after having done so, the mayor and his wife went home and hanged themselves. Later on Ike wrote to Mamie, “I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world.” He cabled General Marshall to suggest that he come to Germany and see these camps for himself. He encouraged Marshall to bring Congressmen and journalists with him. It would be many months before the world would know the full scope of the Holocaust — many months before they knew that the Nazi murder apparatus that was being discovered at Buchenwald and dozens of other death camps had slaughtered millions of innocent people.

General Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons he ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in print, pictures and film. As he explained to General Marshall, “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”

Eisenhower must have foreseen people such as Iranian President Ahmadinjad, Palestinian President Abbas, and MSNBC Commentator Pat Buchanan.

General Patton wrote the following in his diary after he toured the Camp:

It was the most appalling sight imaginable. In a shed . . . was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation. These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench.

When the shed was full--I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried. The inmates claimed that 3,000 men, who had been either shot in the head or who had died of starvation, had been so buried since the 1st of January (Source)

General Omar Bradley said of the atrocities at Ohrdruf:

"The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade. More than 3200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets where they had fallen. Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames."

Today we are living in a world time where the "leader of the free world" has given Carte Blanche for evil to grow. He has reached out his hand to appease Iran, a country that is rushing to create nuclear weapons with a stated purpose of destroying the Jews and the Jewish homeland. He has stacked his formal and informal group of advisers with people who push that age old anti-Semitic canard that Jews control foreign policy, people such as Robert Mally, Samantha Powers and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and is quick to criticize the Jewish State but avoids upsetting the terrorist powers that would destroy her.

We are living in a world where deniers of the Holocaust like Pat Buchanan are given TV time to spew their venom, and anti-Semites like Al Sharpton are allowed to be TV pundits and presidential advisers without repenting. We live in a world where America's allies such as Saudi Arabia have official policies banning Jews to enter their borders, and the number two person on the Billboard Charts can create anti-Semitic lyrics such as "All about the bread (money) like I'm Jewish" without any protests.

If Eisenhower was alive today, he would be very disappointed, because the world has learned nothing, and Jew-hatred still reigns.

May the Memories of those who suffered through the Shoah always be for a blessing. And may we never forget what evil men can do when they are given Carte Blanche by the rest of the world.

1 comment:

Sammy, I had the great honor to sing (with my church's choir) the Holocaust Cantata, along with some Lewandowski pieces, as an add-on to Friday services at a local temple the other night. We had a number of survivors from Buchenwald and Treblinka there, and attendance of over 700. It was a joy to meet and speak with them afterward, and I've seldom been so moved when singing in a service. A never-to-be forgotten night, and a powerful reminder of why we need to record survivors' stories and memories before it is too late.